I made a despairing attempt at desi food last night. Without suitable spices etc it was quite poor. Generally my desi food game is not strong – it’s a lot of effort and when there is no one else to enjoy it it rarely feels worth the hassle. The GF quite likes it but would usually prefer something else so far as I can tell, and the usual ingredients are not ones he cares for or eats, so if I make desi food I feel obliged to make at least one other dish that he will want, unless there is someone else around. Since I don’t get much practice, if there is a guest I don’t risk spending all that time time to cook something that may not turn out very well. As a result I never really got into the habit of making desi food other than daal, which the GF does eat, and then when my mother was ill I went often enough to Pakistan that I could eat home cooked food there. But now there is no prospect of going home, and no prospect of getting spices, and no food with similar flavours other than kebabs, and no point cooking a chicken.
Anyhow. Yesterday we went back to Nisantasi – and bought some stuff. Rather too much of my life is an endless round of buying groceries.
What a dissatisfied post. Grumble, grumble.